Chapter 29 Ryker
RYKER
I’d been up since five, reviewing the Morrison case file for the third time.
I hated leaving Faith this morning before she was even up, but after tucking her in and sleeping on the couch last night, I couldn’t waste hours waiting for her to sleep off her hangover.
So, I’d left her a note and headed into my office.
The whiteboard in the conference room was filling up: timeline of Daniel’s harassment, witness list, evidence we were still waiting on. DNA results pending. Surveillance footage my PI still couldn’t locate. The autopsy report that should have landed on my desk yesterday.
Something about this case felt off. Not Faith’s story. Her, I believed. But the walls we kept hitting? Those felt deliberate.
“Um, sir …”
“Ryker,” I reminded my new assistant for the hundredth time as I walked out of the conference room and headed towards my office.
“Right, um …” She pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, fingers trembling slightly. “There’s someone waiting for you in your office.”
“Did they have an appointment?”
She shook her head, eyes wide. “He just … walked in. Said you’d want to see him.”
Great. I didn’t have time for this. My day was already packed with depositions, and Faith’s casework was spreading like wildfire. Faith. Just thinking her name made something tighten in my gut with a protective instinct so fierce, it scared me. Focus, Kincaid.
When I opened my office door, all I could think was, Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Judge Theodore Kearns stood, hands folded behind his back, like he owned the view.
The scent of leather and old books mixed with something biting, like his cologne was designed to be as intrusive as he was being right now.
The sun cast his shadow long and dark across my Persian rug.
He didn’t even give me the courtesy of apologizing for bursting in here, unannounced. Power play number one.
“Judge Kearns.” I kept my voice neutral, professional. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”
Or any day, for that matter. Judges visiting defense attorneys in their offices was about as common as unicorns in downtown Chicago.
When my assistant left and shut the door behind her, he finally graced me with a look.
Not a glance. A look. The kind that probably made junior prosecutors wet themselves.
His eyes were the same cold blue as his son’s had been.
The same eyes that Faith had described watching her through her bedroom window.
My fingers curled into fists.
The protective rage that surged through me caught me off guard. I wanted to throw this man out of my office. Wanted to tell him exactly what I thought of him and his monster of a son.
Easy. Stay professional.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I managed, though the words tasted like lies. If even ten percent of what Faith had told me was true, this man had enabled a predator. And Daddy Dearest here had been cleaning up Junior’s messes for years; I’d bet my car on it.
Still, the man had lost his son. Even monsters had fathers who mourned them.
“Can I offer you something to drink?” I stood and moved in front of my desk. “I can have Stacy—”
“You have any idea what you’re doing?” His voice cut through my offer like a blade through silk.
Okay then. Small talk was officially dead.
“As I said, I’m very sorry for your—”
“Spare me.” He glared at me, and I saw it. Not grief. Not sorrow. Just cold, calculating fury. “You think I came here for your condolences?”
I folded my arms across my chest, letting my suit jacket pull tight across my shoulders. “Then why are you here, Your Honor?”
“You know exactly why I’m here.”
“I’m afraid I’ll need you to be more specific.” I leaned against my desk, casual as Sunday morning.
His jaw ticced. Power play number two: make him say it first.
“The Morrison woman.”
Faith. Her name is Faith, you pompous ass. The memory of her painting lime-green walls for her teenage foster graduate flashed through my mind. The nervousness in her eyes when she’d told me about this guy’s son. How he’d stalked her. Terrorized her. Made her life hell.
For over a decade.
“Ms. Morrison is entitled to legal representation,” I said evenly.
“That’s a load of bullshit.”
“Pardon me?”
“If you were actually sorry for my loss, you wouldn’t be defending the woman who slaughtered him.”
Slaughtered. Interesting word choice. Not killed, not even murdered. Slaughtered. Like his precious boy was an innocent lamb.
“I’m a criminal defense attorney. As you’re well aware, every citizen has the right to a fair—”
“Don’t insult me with constitutional platitudes.” He flicked his hand dismissively, his Harvard class ring catching the light.
“The Constitution isn’t a platitude, sir. It’s the foundation of our entire legal system. Something you swore an oath to uphold.”
He crossed the room, stopping close enough that I could smell his cologne. Expensive. Oppressive. Just like him. He peered down at me, clearly expecting me to step back, to cower.
I didn’t move an inch.
“You would be well advised to show me more respect.”
“Respect is earned, Your Honor.” I kept my voice low, controlled. “And from what I’m learning, your son harassed Ms. Morrison for over a decade. That doesn’t inspire much respect.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “My son was the victim here.”
“Your son stalked her for over a decade. Showed up at her house. At her workplace. Threatened her. Terrorized her.”
“My son was interested in her. There’s nothing illegal about that.”
“There is when she told him no. Repeatedly. For years.” My voice hardened. “There is when he made threats. When he showed up, uninvited. When he made her afraid to walk to her own mailbox.”
And suddenly, the surveillance dead ends made sense. The stonewalling my PI kept hitting. If Judge Kearns had been cleaning up his son’s messes for a decade, why would he stop now? What else had been buried? What evidence had conveniently disappeared?
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
“Whatever lies that woman has been feeding you—”
“If your son was as innocent as you claim, then you have nothing to worry about when this goes to trial.”
The words hung in the air between us. Subtext screaming: But he wasn’t innocent, was he? And we both know it.
“You will drop Faith Morrison as a client.” Not a request. A command. The kind he was used to having obeyed without question.
“Will I?” I pushed off from the desk, squaring my shoulders. “And why would I do that?”
“Because I’m telling you to.”
A laugh escaped me. “With all due respect, Your Honor, you don’t sign my paychecks.”
“She killed my son.” His voice dropped to a growl. “In cold blood. And anyone who helps his killer walk free becomes my enemy.”
Enemy. There it was. The threat wrapped in a warning, tied with a bow of judicial authority.
This was what Faith had been up against. Not just a stalker, but a stalker with a judge for a father. A family who could make evidence disappear, intimidate witnesses, destroy her credibility before she ever set foot in court.
“Is that a threat, Judge Kearns?”
“It’s friendly advice.” His smile was all teeth, no warmth. “Drop the case. Do the right thing.”
The right thing. Like he’d know the right thing if it bit him on his privileged ass. The right thing would have been getting his son help years ago, before Faith became his obsession.
“Even if I dropped her case, someone else would defend her,” I pointed out. “It’s the law.”
“Oh, she’ll have representation.” Something shifted in his expression. Satisfaction. “Her constitutional rights will be observed.”
The realization slammed through me like a fist to the gut. “You already have someone lined up. Someone who’ll tank her defense.”
He didn’t deny it. Didn’t even try.
Wolfe. I’d bet everything Wolfe’s fingerprints were all over this visit.
Maybe Judge Kearns was the one who’d assigned Wolfe as the prosecutor in the first place.
Given him his marching orders to intimidate me into dropping the case.
And when that hadn’t worked, this was the next move on the chessboard.
“How’s your buddy Knox Blackwood doing these days?” Kearns examined his manicured nails as casually as if he were discussing the weather.
The world stopped. What the fuck did he just say?
“I heard he’s up for parole again.” He continued like he hadn’t just detonated a bomb.
“Though it would be unfortunate if certain … concerns … were raised about his rehabilitation. Concerns that could squash this or any future chance he has. How old is his daughter now? The one he hasn’t seen in years? ”
Red. Everything went red. My hands clenched so tight, my knuckles cracked.
Knox had nothing to do with this. My close friend, rotting in prison for a crime that should’ve been manslaughter, and this bastard was dangling his freedom like bait.
Reminding me of the daughter Knox had fathered when he was a teenager.
The one he’d revolved his entire college existence around.
How he’d picked a finance major so he could provide more for his family.
And how much I knew Knox dreamed of being reunited with his daughter. How dare this guy use that as a weapon.
“Careful, Your Honor.” My voice came out deadly quiet. “That sounded dangerously close to judicial misconduct.”
“I’m simply making conversation about a mutual acquaintance.” He straightened his tie, a smile playing at his lips. “Of course, if you were to reconsider your current caseload, I’m sure Knox’s parole hearing would proceed without any … complications.”
He was really doing this. A sitting judge, threatening to interfere with parole proceedings. Threatening my friend’s freedom.
This was the family Faith had been fighting. This was the power that had protected a predator for years. And now, I was seeing it firsthand—the corruption, the manipulation, the absolute certainty that they believed themselves to be above the law.
“Get out of my office.”
“Think about what I’ve said, Mr. Kincaid.” He strolled toward the door, pausing at the threshold. “You have until end of business today to make the right decision. After that …” He shrugged, letting his threat linger.
The door clicked shut behind him.
I stood there for a full minute, breathing hard, fists shaking with the effort not to punch something. The smug bastard had just threatened Knox. Threatened a man who’d already paid too high of a price, whose daughter was growing up without him.
And he’d done it to protect his son’s reputation. To silence Faith. To make sure the truth about Daniel Kearns stayed buried.
I grabbed my phone, fingers flying over the screen. First, a text to my investigator: Dig deeper into the Kearns family. Everything. I want to know every parking ticket, every sealed record, every rumor.
Then I stormed into the conference room, to a second whiteboard in the corner and flipped it around.
On the blank side, I wrote two words: JUDICIAL INTERFERENCE.
Below that, I documented everything Kearns had just said.
The threats. The Knox leverage. The implication that he had a puppet defense attorney waiting in the wings.
If this ever went before an ethics board, I wanted every detail recorded while it was fresh.
Judge Kearns had just made this personal.
He wanted a war?
He just got one.
And if Kearns thought he could use Knox as leverage, he’d severely underestimated how dirty I was willing to fight. This wasn’t just about defending a client anymore. This was about justice. Real justice. The kind that didn’t care about your last name or your father’s position.
The kind that protected women like Faith from men like Daniel Kearns.
Living or dead.
But how could I go into battle if doing so would drag Knox under? I couldn’t drop Faith’s case without betraying Blake and Faith. But I couldn’t keep going without risking Knox’s freedom either.
After pacing for a couple of minutes, I realized this wasn’t my decision to make alone. Knox needed a say in this too.
Looked like I’d be paying my friend an unscheduled visit today.